A slide member such as a slide bearing provided with a bearing alloy layer comprising Al alloy or Cu alloy exhibits relatively good initial conformability and outstanding fatigue resistance and wear resistance. Such slide member is employed in bearings for high output engines used, for instance, in automobile and industrial machines in general. A slide member with further improved bearing properties is desired with improvement in engine performance.
A slide member with improved bearing properties, namely conformability and wear resistance, is disclosed in JP 2001-165167 A. The disclosed slide member has a bearing alloy layer comprising Al alloy or Cu alloy which has annular protrusions formed on it. The slide member further has a diamond-like carbon layer on the surface of the annular protrusions. The document teaches that the conformability of the disclosed slide member is improved because the annular protrusions are plastic deformation prone when subjected to the load applied by the counter element. The document further teaches that the disclosed slide member exhibits good wear resistance because of the diamond like carbon layer provided on the surface of the bearing alloy layer.
In addition to improvement in conformability and wear resistance, reduced friction coefficient is emerging as a further desired improvement in bearing properties.